CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Four months after a deadly mass shooting at Walmart’s store in the Greenbrier area of Chesapeake, the work of a multi-million dollar renovation is becoming more clear.
No longer is the store painted the same as it was the night an overnight shift team lead shot and killed six and injured at least two others before turning the gun on himself. Instead of a tan facade, the store now sports a shade of gray.
Permits issued by the City of Chesapeake reveal a wide range of other work done inside the more than 200,000-square-foot store, following the crime that police say occurred mainly in an employee break room.
It’s a process that isn’t a first for the nation’s largest retailer.
The Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the site of a 2019 mass shooting that left 23 dead, was closed for three months while the company remodeled. That store too opened looking nothing like it did when the mass murder occurred.
While Walmart has not commented on the work it would be completed at the store off Sam Circle, permits issued by the city show internal demolition started in December.
Earlier this year, Virginia Beach-based BRR Refrigeration HVAC which helps install refrigerators and walk-in freezers commercially reported to the city they planned to install nine new refrigerated cases for the store.
KBS, Inc., a construction company out of Richmond is overseeing a 3,000-square-foot expansion at the front of the store, near where it abuts the At-Home property. The permit doesn’t designate what the use of the space will be.
Finally, Vaughan Enterprise Corp., also based in Virginia Beach, has indicated it will install nine new Walmart signs around the property of various sizes.
Walmart has not announced a date for reopening but has announced they are hiring associates to staff it.
One thing that appears certain is that none of those employees will ever have to walk back into the breakroom where police say a majority of the crime occurred.
A city inspector reported just this week that the “new admin area and employee lounge left for insulation and above ceiling approval.”